Forgive My Hesitation
by Aspen Snow
Summary: There are some things in life that touch you, scar you so deeply that you are haunted by their memories, plagued them. Sometimes it’s love. Sometimes love burns...SK
1. Default Chapter

**Forgive My Hesitation**

I was alone. Always. Because I wanted to be, because I needed to be, because I had to be. I am a focused man, a man of control, a man of precision.

And I knew what I wanted in life, I wanted power. I was born for it. So I planned, I worked, and I waited for that moment I had been preparing for my whole life. And in the end I steadfastly believed that it didn't matter that I was alone. Because that wasn't important to me.

Yet sometimes, despite my firm resolve, I find myself wondering what might have been. I find myself speculating with a whimsy that does not belong in a man like me. Looking back on the life that led me to where I am now, I know I wasn't completely and totally alone.

I knew people, knew their faces, knew their voices. They cared for me. Smiled at me. And all I could do was smile back. An empty smile.

Because while I was a cold man, I wasn't callous, I wasn't cruel. I gave them the gesture, empty though it was.

And what they didn't know was that tomorrow I could walk away, forever, and never look back. They didn't know how easily I could forget their faces, forget their voices, and never care.

Never.

Because they had never really been a part of me, and they would never be. They were merely whispers in my life, carried away by my indifference, never to be remembered, always forgotten.

They didn't know just how little I cared.

I had goals, I had desires and I would let no one get in the way of accomplishing them.

No one.

In this world only the strong survive, and only those who care about their own interests will get ahead.

I kept these people around anyways, always at a distance, but they were there. There not because I wished them to be, but simply because they were necessary. I never cared to look beyond their usefulness to me.

I went into a card store the other day. Someone I knew was having a birthday, a trivial thing really, but common decency demanded that I get something to commemorate the occasion. Though I don't know why I bothered. Tomorrow I would walk away from them, their services no longer necessary to me, and I would be out $1.99.

Plus tax.

Nevertheless, I found myself walking into that brightly lit store, the cheery ringing of the bells announcing my presence, and grating on my nerves. I passed the noisily clanging wind chimes, the witty and mundane magnets, the colorfully gaudy glass figurines, and headed straight for the rows of cards at the back with a single minded purpose. I would get the card and leave the irritating store, my chore for the day done.

I skipped the sentimental ones, those cards which spoke of love, of hope. Beautiful cards with beautiful words. These would not do.

I could give such a card to the person I knew. I could scribble down a meaningful message, sign it and feign sincerity.

I was good at pretending.

I could watch them read the card, hear them say the hollow words aloud. They would smile, they would be touched by my thoughtfulness, my tenderness. And then I'd look into their eyes brimming with joy, bursting with love, and I'd walk away.

Because I would feel nothing.

Nothing.

And then they would be left with a beautiful card whose beautiful words would be tainted by bitterness, by hate. Because I would have walked without pausing to say goodbye.

And it would hurt them, knowing that I did not care. And I was not a cruel man, I was honest, I was fair.

So I walked by these cards, letting my fingers brush lightly across their surfaces, their beauty alluring, their brilliant sparkles hopeful.

Tempting.

But I was not lured, I was not tempted. Because I knew the truth. The world was ugly, the world did not sparkle.

It burned.

I finally did pick a card, one from the humor section, plucked randomly from its display. The joke inside was decidedly unoriginal and sorely overused. But it was sufficient.

And the next day I give this card to the person I know. I watch them read it, watch them laugh accordingly at the inane joke inside. I look at them, I see the smile in their eyes, a polite message of thanks.

And nothing more.

Later I walk away from them because I'm tired, because their usefulness has expired. I think back to the socially expected laugh, the courteous gratitude, and I wonder if this time they will miss me. I wonder if this time they will not be pained or angered at my indifference, at my apparent cruelty.

Because this time I gave them an ordinary card with simple words, a card which made no promises, a card they could, and would, forget.

I was gone. And maybe this time it will be them who will not care.

But I doubt this. Because I am pessimist, a realist, and I believe that nothing ever works out the way we want it to.

Because it never does.

It was time that people learned that life was not fairy tales and daydreams. It was time that they learned it was not easy.

It was impossible.

Hope, love, happiness, these are never what we dream them to be, what we expect them to be. They are worse.

So much worse.

Love, happiness, such frivolous words, ambiguous. I've seen them kill people, make them bleed.

Nothing is worth that pain.

There are some things in life that touch you, scar you so deeply that you are haunted by their memories, plagued by them.

For me it was weakness. Painful, heartbreaking helplessness.

Helplessness. Because I watched her die. She was the only woman to look into my eyes and see warmth and love. I idolized her with the blind loyalty of a son.

I watched as she slowly faded from this world. From my life. I watched as love broke her, beat her.

I would hear her tears at night, muffled cries of anguish. And eventually I would watch her die because living had become too painful. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I was helpless, I was weak. So I grew up, and now I'm not. I'm strong, powerful, because once I wasn't.

And it had broken me.

And that was my fear, the festering wound that hasn't healed.

That never will.

Eventually I discovered that walking away from people, from everything, was so much easier than staying to fight for something that will not, cannot last. With every person I see then end, I see the pain, the bitterness, the promise of weakness in their eyes.

And I walk away.

Because their flaws will break me, hold me back.

But I couldn't walk away forever. Fate had a plan for me. A punishment. Because one day she came into my life. A stranger, a woman, one so much like me. Quiet, reserved, regal. And a little bit sad.

And I wondered if people saw that in me too. Sadness. Because it was there, an unacknowledged presence born of pain, of loneliness, of longing, it was a shadow on my soul.

We were inexplicably drawn to one another. The bond between us was instinctual, it was recognition and it was completely unexpected.

Her beauty was the first thing I noticed. It was shallow and superficial, but for me, a man who cared about nothing, it was perhaps the only thing capable of catching my eye.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I not been five minutes late that morning. I walked into that small and crowded coffee shop supremely irritated and I stood in line, impatiently playing with the change in my pocket, much to the dismay of the elderly woman in front of me.

I ordered my coffee in clipped tones, practically bursting with the need to leave. I heard the young women behind the counter call out my drink order, and I stepped forward and made a move to grab the steaming cup, already anticipating that first scalding hot sip. But I was stopped by the hand of another reaching for the cup as well.

We had ordered the same thing, go figure. We turned to each other at the same time, and then to the girl behind the counter, clearly questioning who the drink belonged to, but the useless worker simply shrugged, and resumed filling her orders.

I sighed in frustration, fully prepared to be the gentleman and let her take the drink, despite the fact that it was the last thing I wanted to do. But she seemed to have anticipated my annoyance and she stepped back first, a tiny smile on that beautiful face, and let me take it.

I didn't say thank you, I didn't say hello. To be honest I barely acknowledged her presence. I simply took the cup which was rightfully mine and headed out the door, hearing the same order being called again even as I stepped outside the coffee shop.

I didn't think about her for the rest of the day, didn't dream about those shockingly blue eyes that night. Though it wouldn't be long before I did.

But I was five minutes late the next morning, and the morning after that.

And the morning after that I said hello, and she smiled. The rest is history.

Soon I knew that she had left as many people behind in her life as I had in mine. Soon I learned that it was the pain of unrequited love that had broken her, so much like the only other woman in my life. And that was when I fell. Hard. Completely.

She was my mirror, and every once in awhile, in those quiet moments when we never talked, I would catch a glimpse of myself in her eyes. And I would turn away, because I could not bear to see the person I had become.

But here she was, the first person to share my life, the first person to see beyond the coldness, beyond the indifference and see the pain, the fear.

And it was obvious wasn't it? The fear, the sadness. Only sadness could make me not want to care, could make me so afraid to trust, to feel. It was the truth, and I hated to admit it because I was a man who prided himself on strength and fearlessness.

But I was afraid, because I had been broken once.

But she would smile at me, a smile full of sunshine, of laughter and I would find myself smiling back and meaning it. And I would find myself forgetting all the reasons why I wasn't supposed to like her, why I wasn't supposed to be happy.

Because she was irresistible, because she was just as untouchable as I was.

Her and I were a tragic couple, we were both running from the pain of the past. We weren't meant to love, we were meant to hurt, to grieve.

Because that was what made us so beautiful. Sadness.

I knew at the end of this I would be broken because something this achingly beautiful could only hurt me. And then all the things I had been running from would consume me, taint me.

Break me.

But I stayed despite this. Trusted her with an innocence and naïveté I was sure I had never possessed. Trusted her because she looked into my eyes with a raging need, because I touched her face so gently with my calloused fingers, kissed her lips with a sweet possessiveness, and savored her.

I trusted her because she made me feel alive. Made me feel something so real it was painful. Desire. Need. I desired her, needed her, wanted her. And I hadn't wanted anything in so long.

In that one moment I cared. Cared desperately for the woman who had walked so quietly into my life and touched me.

The time I spent with her was magical, it was an aberration. I had been traveling the same path my whole life. And then she appeared, a vision, a solemn beauty, and she took my hand and showed me another way.

I liked to think that my touch stirred her, I liked to think that my smile chased away her demons, I liked to think that I affected her as much as she did me. There were days that I swore she saw the future in my eyes, days I swore she smiled just for me.

But one day I offered her my hand, and so much more. And for a moment she hesitated, it was brief, a slight wavering of her hand, but she hesitated, and I noticed, because that was what I did.

Her hand was warm in mine. Perfect. I squeezed it gently, a strange sort of melancholy suddenly ruining the moment. She had hesitated, she was so much like me. I should have seen it coming, should have known. The laughter had been missing from her eyes for awhile now, the warmth had faded. Her fears were catching up with her again, waiting there at the edge of her mind, preparing to consume her.

Because I had been broken by helplessness, and she had been broken by love. And so I held her hand tightly, refused to let it go, if only for the day.

Because I knew she was leaving, and her hesitation was her goodbye.

There would be no words, no tearful explanations, she would just be gone. And I would be helpless to stop her, helpless and hurting. Terrified, because my age old fear will have risen once again, the wound re-opened and bleeding.

It was ironic really, fitting, that I had spent my entire life leaving people, walking away from them, blindly running away from the helplessness that haunted me.

And in the end I would be the one left behind, weak and alone.

Only a miracle could save me now, only a miracle could bring her back, make her stay.

So I turn my back on her, on us, refusing to remember her gentle touch, the way she tasted, and I don't cry. I don't mourn. Because it's useless.

I don't believe in miracles.


	2. Every Now And Then

**Every Now And Then**

* * *

_The moon is a big yellow eye remembering what we have lost or never thought. That's why the moon looks raw and ghostly in the dark._

* * *

I've been sitting at this bar for hours, all day really. Some would call it getting drunk, others would call it drowning. I liked to call it meditating. I wasn't actually drinking the bottle of beer that sat in front me. I detest beer. I hate that cheap, bitter taste of the common man. I just wanted to hold it while I sat there, meditating. I needed the sharp coldness of the condensation to keep me in reality. Without it I would surely succumb to the numbness I couldn't escape.

A not so subtle cough at my side made me remember that I was not sitting here alone. I turned to look at the woman beside me, a blonde. She had been sitting there for awhile now, ever so slightly moving her chair closer and closer to mine. Every so often, her hand would "accidentally" brush my forearm as she reached for the basket of peanuts in front of me. She smiled when I looked over at her, her dark red lips turning up at the corners, suggesting, promising. It was a smile of want, of desire.

She asked me to dance. I let her grab my hand and lead me to the dance floor, I let her wrap herself around me, press her curves tightly into mine. For a second I heard the murmurings of some slow song coming from the jukebox, for a second I was tempted to run my hand over the bare skin of her shoulder, for a moment I felt a flash of desire.

For a moment.

This woman was warm, she was soft, she was nothing. Nothing. Suddenly I wished for the icy slide of the beer bottle on my fingertips. That was real. This wasn't. I looked into this woman's brown eyes, and all I could see was blue, that deep, dark blue that haunted me.

_Her_ eyes had been blue.

Then my hand moved up her arm of its own accord, gliding over bronzed skin that was not nearly soft enough, idly playing with wisps of hair not nearly silky enough, not nearly black enough.

_Her_ hair had been black.

This woman ran her hand down my chest, smoothly, stopping to lightly play with the buckle of my belt. There is no suggesting now, just telling, just promising. This woman wants me, yet I know that at the end of this song I will quietly return to my barstool, take one bitter sip of my neglected beer, and leave. And the woman will stand there, in the middle of the dance floor, confused and wondering what she did wrong. Eventually she will shrug it off, eventually she will dismiss me as an asshole, an insensitive jerk, and she will move on to her next conquest. But she will never know that she had just been wasting her time, she will never know the face I see when I close my eyes, the face that haunts me, the face I can't forget. She'll never know that it was _her_ arms I felt when I held her close, swaying to the rhythm of the music. She'll never know that it was _her_ perfume I smelled, _her _body that made me shiver. She'll never know that the instant I opened my eyes to see blonde hair and brown eyes was the very instant she lost me.

Because there had only been one, one woman, one lover I had given my heart to. But she didn't want it. There is only one woman I want. But she doesn't want me. But there are times, like now, when I am holding a woman close to me, when I can feel her warmth crowding me, comforting me, that I can close my eyes and pretend, for a moment, that things had turned out differently.

But of course they hadn't. So now I live my life in these minutes, snapshots, forgotten moments of another time. Because it's all I have left.

And now I'm back in my apartment, fingering the ivory envelope I have yet to open. I don't need to open it. I already know what it says. She sent it to me, to make me remember or to make me forget I really don't know. I tell myself the only reason I remember her is because there was no goodbye; just her leaving with an unspoken apology on her lips and regret in her eyes. No goodbye, no end to our relationship. I like to tell myself that despite my resolve to forget I remember only because I had no closure. I can't forget something that never really ended.

But of course that's just bullshit.

Years after she had left me, years later when the ache hadn't dimmed and the cold got sharper I let myself wonder what she was doing. There was just something about that time of year, the cold bleakness of winter that always reminded me of her, of us. There was nothing bright about us, we were cold, empty, lonely. Two wandering souls lost in winter who had accidentally found each other. And that worked for us, it made what we had beautiful, poignant. Sadness, without it we never would have been, and sadness lives in the winter, in that gray and dreary time when the world is depressed and cold.

So sometimes, only in winter, I wondered what she was doing, where she was. I picked up the phone once and dialed her old number. I didn't know what I was going to say, hell, I didn't know if I even _wanted_ her to answer the phone. But I found my fingers dialing those old familiar numbers, numbers I didn't even know I remembered. When a strange, and distinctly male, voice answered I was tempted to hang up and forget my momentary lapse in sense. But I found I couldn't, I found myself asking for her, saying her name out loud. Her name sounded so strange out in the open, for so long I had heard it as only an echo in my head. To hear it out loud, to hear myself speak it was jarring.

The man on the other end didn't recognize the name. Are you sure? I remember asking. Yes. He said with certainty, finality. Then I hung up, stared at the phone in my hand as if it held the answers to my questions, and wondered, briefly, if she had ever done the same thing. I wondered if she had ever picked up a phone, found herself dialing my number only to hang up, not knowing what to say or why she called.

And right now, at this moment, her envelope in my hand, I wondered if she _knew_ what she was doing right now. Because right now she's tearing me apart with her memories, she's emptying my heart with her stupid fucking letter. And even now I can hear her call, I can hear her whispering my name each time that cold, winter wind blows.

* * *

_Hell somehow exists in the distance, between what happened and what never happened_

* * *

I saw her not long ago. Yeah, a couple of months ago. That's what started this whole thing, that's what prompted my impromptu trip to the bar, the trip down memory lane, that's what prompted this pathetic self indulgent reflection shit.

It was in a coffee shop. Funny that I never remembered that first time we met, so long ago, until me met again in that same place by some twisted sort of cosmic fate.

We sat at that table, the one in the corner, where it was the quietest, and for awhile we just sat there, drinking coffee letting the silence grow into an uncomfortable tension.

"Did you miss me?" she finally said. Straight to the point, no bullshitting. I always liked that about her, except for then, when I think I could have used the inane small talk and idle chatter to gather my thoughts, create a strategy, an impenetrable defense that she could _not_ get through.

"No" I said, taking a sip of my coffee, only slightly surprised by my nonchalance.

"Liar" she sad. I had forgotten, how much alike we were. I lied for self preservation. The truth only led to pain. I knew that, she knew that.

"I thought about you the other day." I didn't believe her. Maybe it was because she was looking out the window when she said it. Maybe it was because it was easier to think she _never_ thought about me, easier to think that I could hate her.

"Really?" I asked, though it wasn't really a question.

"Yeah. I saw this car," she started wistfully, as if the memory made her happy, "it was like that silver one you used to drive."

"The BMW"

"Yeah, that one. Anyways, I saw one and it made me remember…" she trailed off, turning once again to gaze out the window. As if there was something about the memory that made her not want to look at me.

"Remember what?" I asked curiously. There was something there, in the way her hands twisted the napkin on the table, the way her knee was shaking slightly under the table.

And then she looked at me, really looked at me for the first time since we saw each other in line. Her blue eyes intense, bared.

"That feeling" she said, her gaze unwavering, "that feeling I used to get…with you." The feeling, _that_ feeling. I remembered it, remembered it often. I never thought she did too.

"And?" I asked.

Her intense gaze softened at that, her lips turned up, ever so slightly at the corners in a gesture I had once been intimately familiar with.

"And I smiled." She said simply, as if her remembering what we once had was something simple. When it had never been. And then her smirk disappeared as her eyes bored down on me, as if she were searching for something within me, as if she were searching for a truth in my eyes. Maybe once, long ago she would have been able to find it. But not now.

"Did you miss me?" she asked again, only this time it was shaky, full of sadness and tears. And it suddenly hit me that maybe she _had_ wondered what I had been doing since she left, it hit me at that one moment that she had missed _me_. I hadn't thought that possible.

"Did you?" she asked again, a whisper.

"Every now and then." I said. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth, I still didn't believe she deserved it.

"Every now and then?" she repeated, her eyes brightening.

"Yes" I admitted, "sometimes I wonder…"

"What might have been?" she finished for me. Yeah, I thought. Sometimes I wonder what might have been.

And that was it. That was the extent of our fateful reunion. Nothing dramatic, no tears, no confessions of love, of longing. Just half finished thoughts and whispered sentences. Half truths and lies. In a way it was comforting, knowing that nothing had changed, that _we_ had not changed. And at the same time it hurt knowing that after all these years we still couldn't say the words.

_I love you_. God, they were just words, three fucking little words. She wanted me to say them that day. The need was in her eyes, shining and pleading. But I had ignored them, turned my back on her and walked away. As she had once done. And I hadn't seen her or heard from her since that day in the coffee shop, until now.

A wedding invitation. Her wedding invitation. It was funny really, because I knew she didn't love this man, couldn't. I wondered if he knew that. I knew what this was, I knew what it meant. It was her goodbye, the closure I had been looking for, that I had been denied. Perhaps now I could move on. But then, after all this time, a simple invitation wouldn't do, was not nearly enough to make me forget.

Five o'clock the invitation said. Right now it was four thirty three, twenty seven minutes away. So I grabbed my keys, threw the invitation on the coffee table, and sped away, as fast as I could, in a desperate and crazy attempt to get to that church.

When I got there, I parked across the street. I could see the long, white limousine out front, waiting for the happy couple to emerge. The chauffer was smoking; the smoke spiraled out of his window, slowly.

I contemplated going inside. I was dressed appropriately in a suit and tie, residuals from work. I hadn't taken the time to change before my foray into the bar. But I just couldn't bring myself go inside. I couldn't make my hand let go of the steering wheel and open the door. So I just sat there, imagining what was going in the church. I could see it all perfectly.

The dying sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows, the flowers in her hair. I could see the white lace, the warm glow of the candles, I could smell the sweet fragrance of her bouquet. No, I didn't need to go inside. I could see already, vividly and with perfect clarity, the hell that waited for me in there.

Her and another man.

And then those bells were ringing, thunderously announcing the marriage of this new couple. Those wooden doors opened up and she was suddenly there, white and gleaming and perfect. I could have sworn she saw me in that moment before she turned to whisper something in that man's ear. But I didn't stay around to find out. I drove off, not really knowing where I was going, not really caring, until I ended up on an old, lonesome river bridge.

I took the ring from my pocket. The one I had carried since the day she left me, the one that should have been hers. There hasn't been a single day that has passed that I haven't wondered if she would have stayed had she known. Not a single day that I haven't thought that things might have been different if she had only waited one more day.

Just one. But it seemed we were out of days now. She belonged to another, wore a different ring. I guess I won't have to wonder anymore. I watched the diamond sparkle, closed my eyes and pictured, for the last time, what it would have looked like on her finger, and prepared to throw it into the river, into that dark, murky abyss, where it belonged.

But then I heard the sound of crunching gravel and creaking wood behind me. I whipped around, ring still in hand, and found her standing there, in the middle of the old bridge, in her wedding dress.

"I knew you would come." She said, taking a step forward, a step closer to me.

"Did you?" Really, it was presumptuous of her. I had never believed her to be arrogant, or cruel. And what else could this be but cruel. She must have known what this would do to me. Had to have known.

"I wanted you to come." She said firmly. This time I took a step closer.

"Why?" _Why?_ Was I wrong? Was the invitation more than a goodbye? Was it a plea?

"Because if you came I would know…" she whispered, staring at her feet. I took another step, my heart beating furiously, thunderously. I knew what she was asking, I knew what she was waiting for. I had spent all these years hating myself for the weakness that kept us apart. I had seen love break my mother, I had felt it break me, and I had seen it break _her._

But here she stood, in another man's dress, ready to walk away from him, away from the comfort and security of never having to give herself completely to another, if I only I could say the words.

But I couldn't. They weren't in me to say. They weren't in her to say either. So I just held out my hand, and took one step closer. The diamond shined in the light, made her gasp.

"This was yours once" I said, staring at the ring in my hand. Transfixed by its sparkle, by the past it held captive in its depths.

"Is it still?" she questioned softly, reaching out one timid hand to touch it, lightly with her fingertips, as if to confirm that it was real. Her voice held so many question, so many desires. And that was it all it took, the touch of her hand, the look in her eyes, the hope in her voice. That was all it took to make me remember all the things I told myself I would forget. The way she smiled when I held her hand, the way she tasted, at night in the light of the moon, and the way she moved, like a warm breeze through my life.

"Is it still?" she repeated again, gripping my hand in both of hers, as if in prayer. I brought my other hand up to cup her face, my fingers faintly caressing her cheek, reveling in the softness of skin that I hadn't felt in so long.

Too long.

"Always" I said, my thumb tracing lips whose taste I still remembered, "always yours."

Always.

Always hers.

Always mine.

* * *

_Too long I've wandered in winter_

* * *


	3. Black Compassion

**Black Compassion**

_

* * *

_

_I could say I need you — but then you would realize I want you_

_

* * *

_

"Always," I said, my thumb tracing lips whose taste I still remembered, "always yours."

Her eyelashes fluttered, her lips trembled and I couldn't remember what I had been expecting, or what I had even _wanted_ in that moment. All I could see in her eyes was the faint glimmer of an idea I wasn't sure I had ever really believed in.

And her eyes widened, her lip quivered and I think maybe I hated her then for her silence. Because I was admitting something I never really wanted her to _know_ and she said nothing.

Nothing.

I continued to stand there, paralyzed, my thumb still resting lightly on her lips, trapped in a fog of feelings never fully forgotten long after I had spoken those words. My mind was spinning, racing, rapidly trying to figure out when exactly it had lost all grip on rationality.

Because I was not _this_ man. I didn't long or ache or _need._ I was not this man — _this_ man who made grand gestures with sparse words. I was not this man who expected things from other people.

I was not _this_ man who _wanted_ things from people, from her.

I was suddenly angry at my weakness, at my lapse in control and abruptly took a step back and _away_ from her. I needed space. I needed air that was not so full of her. I closed my eyes to steady myself and reign in the emotions that always seemed to run out of control when she was near.

I opened them again half hoping that she would be gone, that she would have gone back to the husband, to the _life_ she had left waiting at the church.

And just leave me _alone._

But she was still there, her hands suspended in the air, her fingers curled as if she were still grasping my hand. And then she let out a little sigh, a little _whoosh_ of air into the space between us.

And that was all it took for things to turn and sharpen in my mind.

That was all it took for me to stop being angry at myself and to be _furious _at _her_. It shouldn't have been surprising, how easy it was to fall back into cold contempt. I shouldn't have been shocked by the sudden intensity of anger I felt.

And I wasn't. I just think that sometimes I forget how easy it was to _hate_ her.

This was the way it had always been with us. Always the simple things, the small things destroying us. A hesitation, a look, a smile, that was all it ever took to force us apart.

This time it was simply the way she stood there, her head bowed and her shoulders slightly slumped in defeat. This time is was the way she appeared to be _disappointed_.

As if it were all _my_ fault that we were here again, silent and distant.

So I hadn't told her I loved her. So what? I had shown her the ring. I had told her it was hers. Always. Wasn't that enough? Couldn't it _be_ enough? So I hadn't said _I love you_.

Well, damn her, neither had _she_.

And this is the way it would always be with us, always one breath away from being together, always one breath away from forever.

And I couldn't take it anymore, the longing, the yearning, the angst. Seeing her there in front of me, in her white dress, another man's bride, it all seemed so unnecessary.

So useless.

"You should go back." I finally said, because I didn't want her there anymore. I had wasted so much time already, wasted so much time remembering and regretting her. I had wasted too much time I _wanting_ her.

She was the callous one, not me. She was the cold hearted bitch without a heart. She was the one who had _moved_ _on_. She was the one who had left me behind and hadn't had the decency to forget me. She was the one who had invited me to _her_ wedding, the one who had so purposefully invited me to share in her happiness.

Happiness. She _knew_ I would never, _could_ never be happy. Especially without _her_.

And oh _fuck_ was that true. In all my anger, in all my fury I _knew_. Knew with a sudden pitch perfect clarity that I needed her.

And nothing could have made me hate her more than that. Because all of a sudden my life was not _mine_. She had snatched a small piece of it with her easy smile and her sad eyes and I wanted it _back_.

"What if I don't want to go back?" she asked in a tone that was only partly curious and mostly angry.

I wanted to yell at her, shake her, strangle her, do anything but wonder why she had to ask for a reason _why_ she should stay. It shouldn't have been me standing here _wanting_. It shouldn't have been me trying to hold on.

"It doesn't matter." I said instead because I _was_ angry and I wanted _her_ to hurt.

And she flinched and I think maybe she wanted to cry then, because her eyes were sparkling and shimmering. But I wasn't sure, because I had never seen her cry before and I think, at that moment, it's what I _wanted_ to see.

She took a step towards me, and then another, the movement causing me to shift my focus to her feet which were moving steadily closer to me, erasing that space I had purposely put between us.

Finding myself absurdly fixated on her shoes as they moved across that gravelly stretch of space, a memory of a conversation of long ago floated through my mind, an echo from a time when we had been a little bit happy.

"_I want a horse drawn carriage." She said the moment after I had turned off the light._

"_What?" I muttered distractedly, half asleep and already running a mental checklist of what I had do in the morning._

"_I want white roses and candles." She continued in a voice that sounded far too soft and far too dreamy for the quiet, sad girl I met in a coffee shop._

"_What are you talking about?" I asked, suddenly wide awake._

"_I want glass slippers." And I laughed, because it sounded so ridiculous and because it was so _normal_ it was scary. Because suddenly she was like every other woman I had known, suddenly she was the wide-eyed girl with white dreams of lace and rings and vows._

"_When I get married," she continued on in the dark, "I want to wear glass slippers. When I get married I want it to be a fairy tale." And I could feel her shift in the bed and in the dark I imagined she was lying on her side, facing me, her head resting on the palm of her hand, waiting, expectantly, for me to say something._

"_Fairy tales aren't real." I said because the truth was the only thing I could give her. She was still for a moment before she turned away from me and settled into bed._

"_I want them to be real." She whispered softly._

The next morning I remembered how we both pretended that black conversation had not happened. But it had. And it has been living in that space between us ever since, feeding off the half truths, the lies and the secrets, keeping us apart.

Because she wanted happily ever after and I _knew_ it wasn't possible. Because she was still a woman with a girl's heart. After all, she was the one in the wedding dress and I was the one with a half discarded ring.

And as the past cleared from my mind she was there, in front of me, her hand curving around my face, maybe remembering, maybe searching, maybe wishing for something.

And I found I hated the way it _hurt_, her looking at me through eyes dazed and blurred with the past. I found I hated the feel of her fingers on my face, leaving a trailed memory of dreams that should have died long ago. I found I hated the way her touch brought them back. I hated the way she made it impossible for me to _forget._

I hated the way I could no longer see beyond the anger and the regret and the _pain_ of wondering.

Wondering what should have or might have been. I hated that I could still feel her fist squeezing my heart, even now as I try to forget.

The scent of her perfume on the air is a cliche I _hate_. It make me long for the indifference and the apathy of who I once was. It had been so much easier then, so much easier to be cruel than to actually _love_.

I still had that ring in my hand. I could feel its sharp edges cutting into my palm. I welcomed the biting pain, it made me remember why this — _this_ could never have worked. God _what_ was I thinking searching for optimism and trust in her arms? She was all cold sadness and I was fearless authority.

Disaster was, and had only _ever_ been, the only thing waiting for us at the end. We'd gone into it, in the beginning, with white intentions — gleaming and new — foolishly believing that we could _make_ something more, something _right_.

But we had both been broken and scarred and cruel and the _filth_ of our lives transformed our white intentions into black compassion. Until I could only ever hate her. Hate her because I wanted her, hate her because I needed her, hate her because I _loved_ her.

And until _she_ could only _want_ to love me, nothing more.

But it doesn't matter anymore because she is gone, walking away from me in her fairy tale dress and her fairy tale shoes to the fairy tale life I could never give her.

And as she walks away, her heels crunching on the ground, her hair trailing in the wind and her eyes cast forward, _away_ from me, I find myself hating the fact that I wish — _desperately _— that her smile didn't make me hate her so much.

So much.

* * *

_And you'll learn, in time, to be cruel — because it's easier_

_

* * *

_


End file.
